1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an air guide device for a cooling tower so as to control the inflow of air streams into the cooling tower, and more particularly to an air guide for a cooling tower, which prevents the air discharged from the cooling tower from flowing back into the cooling tower and facilitates smooth circulation of the air in the interior space of the cooling tower.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known, cooling towers are installed in freezer, heat exchangers, or air conditioning equipments in order to absorb heat from high temperature cooling water used in heat exchange, and to continuously supply with low temperature cooling water.
Typically, a cooling tower is constructed so that outside air introduced into the cooling tower through a cooling fan operatively installed at the upper side of the cooling tower is used for the heat exchange with the flowing cooling water downwardly while passing through the filler material.
Considering a conventional cross-flow type cooling tower, designated as reference numeral 10, as shown in FIG. 1, high temperature cooling water sprayed from an upper water reservoir 14 through nozzles 15 flows in a downward direction along a filler material 13, and then heat-exchanges with outside air introduced by a cooling fan 11. In order to improve cooling efficiency of such cooling tower 10, the substantially dry low temperature air must be introduced into the cooling tower 10, and then must evenly pass through the filler material 13.
There is an essential disadvantage of the conventional cooling tower 10 in that a part of hot and humid air discharged from the cooling fan 11 flows back into the cooling tower 10. That is, a part of air streams discharged through the cooling fan 11 to the outside, occasionally flows back into the cooling tower 10 from rim region thereof, due to various factors including resistivity and gravity of the outside air flowing in the vicinity of the central region of the cooling tower 10, and thus cause deteriorative performances in cooling efficiency of the cooling tower 10.
In general, the air streams introduced into the filler material 13 of the cooling tower 10 by means of the cooling fan 11 have a tendency to flow along a portion exhibiting a lowest resistivity. Therefore, a part of the air streams, especially, flowing in the upper portion of the cooling tower 10, may flow into a space defined between the upper end of the filler material 13 and the lower end of the upper water reservoir 14. Although the space is provided at sides thereof with baffles 16 for preventing the air streams to directly flow thereinto, it cause insufficient heat exchange because of only some quantity of the air streams passed through the filler material 13. Further, due to such an insufficient amount of the inflow air streams on a partial region of the filler material 13, stagnant air streams occur and bring about undesired capability of the cooling tower 10.
Additionally, the conventional cooling tower has in a problem that the end portion of the filler material 13 is exposed to the outside, resulting in a rapid deteriorative performance thereof by ultraviolet-rays, and a damage to the cooling tower 10 by exterior impurities, rainwater, and the like.